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On Friday, Mr. Evers called the court’s latest decision a blow to fair elections in Wisconsin.

“Politicians should not be able to abuse their power to prevent eligible voters from casting their ballots or cheat by changing the rules just because they didn’t like the outcome of the last election,” he said. “Today’s decision is another in a long line of Wisconsin Republicans’ successes to make it harder for Wisconsinites to exercise their right to vote, to undermine our free, fair and secure elections, and to threaten our democracy.”

Municipal clerks who oversee Wisconsin’s elections used drop boxes for years without controversy before the 2020 election, when about 500 were in place across the state, typically outside public libraries and municipal buildings.

After the election, which President Donald J. Trump lost in Wisconsin to Joseph R. Biden Jr. by about 20,000 votes, Mr. Trump’s campaign and his supporters filed an array of lawsuits seeking to invalidate votes cast in drop boxes because the method of returning ballots was not explicitly permitted under state law — though it was authorized by the Wisconsin Elections Commission.

It is not possible to determine precisely how many Wisconsin votes were cast through drop boxes in 2020. About 40 percent of votes cast were absentee, though that figure includes ballots returned in the mail and during in-person early voting. Before the pandemic, in-person early balloting was the predominant method of voting in advance of Election Day in Wisconsin.

In the opinion issued Friday, Justice Bradley compared Wisconsin’s elections to contests rigged by dictators in Syria and North Korea and questioned whether past elections in the state had been legitimate.

“Thousands of votes have been cast via this unlawful method, thereby directly harming the Wisconsin voters,” she wrote. “The illegality of these drop boxes weakens the people’s faith that the election produced an outcome reflective of their will. The Wisconsin voters, and all lawful voters, are injured when the institution charged with administering Wisconsin elections does not follow the law, leaving the results in question.”